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Missed Opportunities: Berlin's Architectural Wasteland

Klaus Wowereit, Berlin's mayor since 2001, has watched his city become one of world's coolest artistic meccas. But under his guidance, the city has devolved into a backward-looking architectural wasteland in which urban planning only favors the rich.
— Der Spiegel

4 Comments

the text reads like something with which i can agree. but i wish the dreadfully mediocre buildings he describes weren't (at least in pictures) better than most of what gets built here in the u.s.

we all wish for better architecture for our cities because we love them and want them to shine. simply showing urban fabric buildings being urban fabric, however, doesn't bother me so much. every project doesn't have to scream for attention, and berlin certainly has a good number of landmarks already. the only pictured project that seemed really wrong was the motel one "near the rail station" - partly because it's dreadfully ugly, but probably also because it appears to stand out in its environs: its siting should have suggested that it take a little more urban responsibility because of the visual impact.

there are no images that show in plan or aerial the urban implications of the mayor's sell-off to investors. that might be more meaningful. i'm not saying the article is wrong, merely that the images provided don't support the argument very well.

It's hard to evaluate the "sell-off" from a purely architectural point of view ie. traditional perspectives, mappings, etc. because the issues themselves extend far beyond the realms of city form.

To illustrate, one such mega-project in Berlin's central-east is the so called "Media Spree". The official plan calls for the former harbour and warehouse areas along the banks of the river Spree to be redeveloped into commercial spaces for creative industries. This might sound all well and good, but these areas aren't actually barren waste-lands. They're actually being used by thousands of creatives already. The exact people who lead to Berlin's rise as a " poor but sexy city" (as Mayor Wowi infamously coined several years ago). But now, those very designers, artists, musicians, startups, nightclubs etc. are being forced out of the area, while huge corporations move in thanks to state subsidies (Universal Music, Coca Cola, MTV). The situation is particularly shitty between the Ostbahnhof and Warschauerstrasse. There you have big-box retailers (the German equivalents of Home Depot and Costco) next to a suburban-style Hockey/Basketball arena (owned by Anschulz, the man behind Staples Center, O2 London, among many others), a non-descript office tower for Daimler Benz, and a (proposed) luxury apartment development, which necessitates the removal of a section of the Berlin Wall; the East Side Gallery. The whole development is a bland, homogenized facsimile of urbanity.

Ultimately though, I think most of the criticism of the "rebuilding" of unified Berlin has less to do with Architectural form, but much more with politics and policies i.e.. selling off its interests to the highest bidder (to the detriment of the city's existing cultural base) while simultaneously ignoring history (destroying some of the last remaining stretches of the Wall, demolishing the former DDR Parliament in order to re-construct a Prussian palace that nobody remembers or cares about).

Of course, what's important to note in all of this is that many citizens of Berlin rely on government assistance, and housing prices are skyrocketing. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that the social democrat Mayor and his socialist coalition partners are selling not only city-owned land, but also state-controlled subsidized housing to private investors.

IamGray thank you for expanding on it. I agree with you about the article's real properties that got my attention too.

Unfortunately the problem is too generic and applies different cities on the globe indiscriminately. I selected the photograph of the seemingly innocent speculative condo proposal on the river's edge for the mirrored news bit because it's more ominous for its speculative nature, more so than already built nondescript pedestrian unfriendly buildings photographed. It sits on the bank occupying the parcel in most on your face way possible, "favoring the rich" on the previously public land municipality is liquidating.

It is true that branding cities "creative" and such is now a real estate marketing terminology and a gateway to gentrification.

thanks for the insight, iamgray. your summary makes a little more sense than what the author provided - or maybe he just mucked it up with too many non-specific and *architectural* critiques for me to glean the points you made from it.

there was a time when i felt pretty close and knowledgeable about berlin, having done a post-wall research fellowship tracking the legacies of pre-war architecture in the post-war east vs west. i can't imagine what a different place it is now from what it was in '90.